Payment systems have become a convenient way for customers to make payments to one or more receivers. The payments can include payments related to one or more bills (“bill payments”), payments for one or more prepaid goods and/or services (“prepaid payments”), payments for opening and/or loading one or more stored value card payments (“stored value card payments”), and/or other types of payments made from a customer to a receiver. Payment systems are often operated by third-party service providers or processing systems, that accept and process payments on behalf of receivers.
Receivers, however, may want the ability to review a payment provided by a customer in order to handle exception items. Some exception items can include rejects. Rejects can include payments that are received but are not able to be immediately processed, and, sometimes are rejected and sent back to the sending customer. For example, accepting a payment in the mortgage or insurance industries has legal and other implications that a receiver may want to avoid if the payment is late, incorrect, etc. Therefore, many receivers review a payment prior to accepting it and have the opportunity to reject the payment.
Receivers often use payment instruments (e.g., paper checks) to perform payment returns (e.g., refunds) for rejected payments. In some embodiments, rejected payments are either returned to the customer or are voided. Providing a payment instrument to a customer, however, can create additional issues and problems, such as check printing equipment and maintenance requirements, remote check printing, check inventory and security requirements, lost check procedures, address resolution procedures, etc, which can be costly for the receiver and can delay or inhibit the return of a payment to the customer.